The Lost Decade

by Angelo M. Codevilla

(Editor’s Note: This article is a brilliant analysis of the last ten years since September 11, 1001. It is long and very detailed. That is why we are providing you with a link to the Claremont Institute’s website, where the article is published. But first, here are some excerpts from the piece:)

“An honest assessment of America’s problem would have led the Bush team to ask: why, given how we have behaved, should any Muslim government take the trouble of restraining anyone inclined to do us harm? The local regimes know far better than we who among their subjects is inclined to do us harm. Their schools and media are anti-American because the regimes make them so. Why not change course and hold them fully responsible for any harm that comes to us from their subjects, no matter how indirectly?”

“Setting objectives other than the ones that rid you of your problems is the biggest mistake anyone can make in war.”

“Why suppose that the armed bands roaming Iraq and Afghanistan are anti-American terrorists who must be fought in their countries lest they come and strike America, when it was perfectly obvious that Iraqis and Afghans were fighting one another for local advantage and fighting Americans insofar as they got in their way? The answer seems to be that recognizing that the regimes and the cultures that spawn terrorists are the problem would force our leaders to acknowledge how mistaken they were in fostering those regimes, and how monumental the task of dealing with them really is.”

Angelo M. Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston University and Vice Chairman of the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors. His most recent book is Advice for War Presidents, published by Basic Books.

Post navigation

5 Responses to The Lost Decade

A really good article, albeit ponderously long. I also believe it’s based upon the false premise that our leaders are ‘silly’ rather than treasonous. Mr. Codevilla shows the true colors of his background in law by dancing around that accusation rather neatly I think. A true tap dance, well executed. (Insert applause here)

Conspiracy theories aside, those who have benefitted most from our skewed foreign and domestic policies have done so with consistant cunning. The devastating results of these policies have only reinforced a new twenty first century version of the old ‘credability gap’ between the oligarchs and the general population.

Codevilla is being kind when he states that our leaders are guilty of foolishness. In my mind its downright sinful.

When an issue is so broad that it divides a Nation,
Attention must be directed to its resolve.
For:
Every kingdom divided against itself
Will be laid waste … … … and if the Republicans
Drive out the Democrats,
Satan would be divided against Himself;
How, then, would his kingdom stand?”
~
Capitalism:
Is a hangover from Feudalism.
Even today corporations
Hold dead peasant insurance policies
On their employees,
Naming themselves as the beneficiary.

That ruling power elite does indeed control the U.S. government behind the scenes has been attested to by many Americans in a position to know. Felix Frankfurter, Justice of the Supreme Court (1939-1962), said: “The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.” In a letter to an associate dated November 21, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote, “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” February 23, 1954
The CFR is the promotional arm of the Ruling Elite in the United States of America. Most influential politicians, academics and media personalities are members, and it uses its influence to infiltrate the New World Order into American life. Its’ “experts” write scholarly pieces to be used in decision making, the academics expound on the wisdom of a united world, and the media members disseminate the message.
These Corporate elite control the media, government, and all that supports their means of gaining power and wealth.

Are we really to believe that our Founding Fathers, with all their wit and deliberation, concluded that to be born in this country and having reached the age of thirty-five were ample qualification to be President? Or did they place an ambiguity in the 12th amendment of the US constitution as a failsafe?